[427TJ]

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Bill, I take it you don't think we need to be in Iraq? Why?

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Because Muslim men will never let us take their oil without a long, bloody fight for it. We should have just bought it from them the way we do from the Saudis. We could have dealt with Saddam differently than we did. Yes, there have been long-standing war plans to invade and secure the Middle East oil fields but they are a last-chance deal, much the same way that Mutually-Assured Destruction was a war plan during the Cold War. Yes, we could have nuked the Soviets and that was (probably still is a war plan inside a Pentagon computer for that one) always an option--a last-chance option, not a pre-emptive war option. We had Saddam so boxed-in he couldn't take a dump without an AWACS plane or spy satellite knowing he was in the crapper but we got greedy and let the war drums beat us into a hysteria and the oil men probably pushed Bush to go for it. I think the oil men resent dealing with Arabs and decided to finally go in and show them who's the boss and just take the oil--f_ck'em. Well, they seem to be fighting us for it. Yes, al Queda is a big problem for America and those bastards need killing but there isn't one informed person on earth who doesn't clearly see that we knocked-off Saddam to get his oil (before China went in there and bought it from him), we just don't talk about it in polite company. (Now China is deep into African oil drilling and they're having problems with African nationalist rebels so we're not alone in having our people die for oil.)

Don't make the mistake of assuming that I think we should coddle terrorists. We should kill them and hastily. The sight of B-52 contrails over Afghanistan during the post 9/11 Tora Bora fight brought tears to my eyes as a former USAF aircrew member with Gulf War experience. Those mother------s were scared s-itless in those caves because America was responding WITH RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION to the horrific 9/11 attacks and killing the f---ers who did it and I think the Middle East respected our al Queda Afghanistan fight--for the most part. Punch us and we'll kill you--they sure as hell understand that and have for centuries. But we should have kept Saddam pinned to the rug and bought his oil from him rather than steal it, which is how all Muslim men see it now.

If Muslim men invaded America to take over our forests for the wood we would ALL take up arms and kill all of them as fast as we could. Good thing we don't have real gun control because we'll cut down any invading army on the shores or wherever they've landed. That's what Muslim men are doing in Iraq.

Again, that's just how it looks to me and I could have it all wrong.

Note on Saddam the terrible dictator who killed his own people. The Chinese government killed a few thousand pro-democracy Chinese in the Tienanman Square massacre in 1989 and America barely made a peep. Our software companies even today help the Communist Chinese government seek-out and identify dissident Chinese pro-America writers on the Internet and the government kills them. So why don't we topple the evil Communist Chinese government and free the oppressed people?

1. Because China has nukes and several million soldiers in their armed forces. (They might be able to kick our ass right off the Asian continent in a conventional fight.)

2. They are our business partner now. (This might be better placed as reason number 1.) (I thought Communism was bad?)

3. They ain't got no oil.

Saddam was weak and easy to knock over and we all cheered. Now we look like assholes for doing so and our reasoning falls flat on most of the world. We look like the bully and Saddam went to his hanging with his head held high, which actually made Muslim men feel proud of his courage and honor as he went to the gallows like a man. He didn't scream, he didn't fight, he knew this would come and he took it like a man. Saddam was a bad, bad guy but we knocked him over because it was easy and America needed an easy victory--politically--to help us feel better for looking weak, lazy, and unprepared on 9/11. The aftermath, as we see day after day in Iraq, is not so easy is it?